First city to go full autonomous taxi

I am a big supporter of autonomous vehicles.  Not only are they an aspect of “The Future” that we’ve been waiting so long for, but they will make life better for so many people.  I live – I like to say – a short drive from the middle of nowhere and if I need to go to work or a store, it takes half-an-hour to get there.  But if my car just drove itself, I’d have that extra time to read, watch YouTube, or write. 

Unfortunately, we’re not at the point of fully self-driving cars on country roads.  They’ll start in cities, which got me wondering which will be the first city with a self-driving taxi service.  I don’t mean when some tech billionaire gifts ten self-driving cars to their small hometown so it now has a self-driving taxi service, but some city – like New York or London – that currently has a taxi service switches over entirely to a self-driving service.  My top picks are some city in Japan, China, or Germany.  Japan because they like robots and have a population issue, and China and Germany to show off their technological might. 

Whatever city goes first, it will be closely watched by the rest of the world, and as long as there is no major issue there will be a rapid – maybe ten years – transition to self-driving taxis in other cities.  Mainly because they’ll be cheaper to operate because they don’t have to pay drivers.  They may even cut fares to knock the people protesting the “dehumanization” off-balance.  Still, there will be a few hold outs like New York and London which are known for their human taxis.

So millions of taxi customers may save money, but what about all the taxi drivers?  What will happen to them?  They’ll just have to find new jobs.  Before you start yelling that that’s a cold view to take, realize, that’s capitalism.  How many horse farms were put out of business when people started buying horseless carriages?  If you don’t complain about that, why complain now about drivers being put out of business by driverless cars?

Some of these taxi drivers could make a new career as … I guess tour guides.  If you just need to go to work, or the airport, or whatever, when you order your taxi you could specify a fully autonomous one.  But if you’re on vacation, you could get one with a tour guide.  These could take you around, tell you the history of the places you go by, maybe recommend some restaurants, stuff like that.  Those that aren’t that interesting, wouldn’t be rated that highly, and would have to look for yet another job. 

Before cars, a lot of people knew how to ride a horse, but now that’s rarely a necessary skill.  Now, most people know how to drive a car, but that will become an unnecessary skill in the coming decades.  It’s possible that in some future amusement park there might be a place where you could drive a car.  Perhaps these aging, out of work cabbies could give those whippersnappers a … crash course on how to drive.  Although a virtual reality setup might be better.  Of course, that could lead to a Virtual Virtual Skeeball scenario.